


Liar's Mice

by Mousewrites



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Horror, Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22935400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousewrites/pseuds/Mousewrites
Summary: I don't remember what mother looked like. The few times the top came off the box the light was so bright all we could do was bury our faces and scream. I remember what she smelled like though...She smelled like death.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Liar's Mice

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, I'm still writing Corvus book 3, but I ran across this old horror short story I posted on the reddit Creepypasta board five years ago, and thought you all might enjoy it.
> 
> I'm a feedback whore, so if you like my work, drop me a note! Knowing people are waiting for my work gives me the juice to get it done. 
> 
> 😘 😘 - mouse

I was born of lies, and live in darkness.

...but I want _out_.

My mother told me, before she stopped talking altogether, that the breeder told the pet store that there were no males in her tank.

Lie.

The pet store told the child that they couldn’t sell her a mouse without a parent. The child said her mother was right outside, and pointed.

Lie.

The child snuck my mother into the house, and told her parents she didn’t buy anything.

Lie.

The child put my mother in a big metal box that had an antique dollhouse in it, gave her food and water, and promised to play with her every day.

Lie.

All lies. My mother grew fat in the dark, and I and my siblings were born into it.

The child thought it was cute that she had had babies, and would have picked us up, but Mother bit her hand so hard she screamed and slammed the lid down.

That was the first time I huddled in the darkness, listening to my Mother eat her children.

The girl opened the box and threw in a bag of dinner rolls before Mother had gotten through all of us. She was confused on where some of the babies had gone, but didn’t try to pet us. She whispered into the box that she would be gone for a few days, but that we should have enough food.

Lies.

She never came back.

The five of us that she hadn’t eaten slowly grew up, eating bread and licking at the water that sometimes dripped down the side of the box.

I don't remember what mother looked like. The few times the top came off the box the light was so bright all we could do was bury our faces and scream. I remember what she smelled like though...

She smelled like death.

I hid from her in the darkness, in the attic of the doll house. The box smelled strongly of us, and I don't think she cared that I was up there, as long as I stayed out of her way.

My mother slowly swelled fat with brothers and sisters again. When I asked her who the father was, she just cackled wetly and said, “Lies.”

I never met any of them. I covered my ears and buried my nose in my paws while they squeaked out their first, and last, weak cries. Some must have grown up, because the noise of chewing mouths and scritching nails got louder and louder.

Once another mouse came into my attic, limping and twisted, bringing a wave of mother-smell with him. His ears were ragged, chewed to bits, and he made only soft, hiccupping noises, when I tried to talk to him.

He wandered away soon after, and I heard him hiccough once more, and a crunch, and then nothing.

Once the bread ran out, I grew thin and bony in my attic.

My only marker of time was the periodic rise and fall of noises from my siblings, who didn't sound much like mice at all, anymore. I slept most of the time.

I woke to a sharp pain in my tail. Lashing out, my skinny paw hit something soft and warm, and it rolled away from me with a burble. I gathered my tail, tending the bite mark.

"Please, sister," the shape said, "Please... mother is gone, we are hungry." Her voice was wrong, too wet sounding, and I could hear her words echoed by others down the little stairway and outside. A hundred voices, burbling and squeaking and asking for help.

Mother was... gone?

I followed their soft footsteps back down to the living room of the dollhouse. Mother's scent was all around, but I couldn't hear the wheeze and grind of her teeth.

Something else was in the living room. It was... light, but not the blinding glare of the box being opened... it was something dim and soft. Even that hurt, but I blinked my tearing eyes and could just make out the black shapes of Mother's ribcage, licked clean and cracked like a walnut. Behind them, between them, a tunnel led down into that faint light. I turned to one of my siblings, surprised, and recoiled when I saw them for the first time.

Pale, with bulging blind eyes and long feet and hands. Tails were chewed to stumps, ears ripped and torn. They all turned wet, sniffing noses to me, their teeth orange and gleaming.

"What's out there?" I asked, and they shook their heads.

"Mother lets us out,” one of them said.

“Out. Mother’s way,” another agreed.

I sniffed at the air coming from the tunnel, and could smell something like feet and shoes and maybe old dust. This close, I could hear a soft whisper, coming up from the ground.

“Sure I brushed my teeth, mom.”

“I forgot about that homework, I swear!”

“Mom, she punched me!” “He punched me first!”

“No, baby, she means nothing to me! I promise!”

Lies. All lies, drifting in on the dim light, a thousand whispering voices, a thousand untruths. Big and small, meaningful and pointless ... and I suddenly realized I hated them all. Hated all the liars, who hid things away to rot in the dark, never letting them breathe clean air or see the light of day.

Hated them, and could make them pay. I felt my lips twitch, and slowly made my way to the nest mother had made. It was soft, lined in the fur of a hundred newborn mice. I curled up, tucking my bony feet under the soft fur.

“Sister,” I said to the nearest pale, bleached shape. “I want you to go down this tunnel, and turn at the third right, you will find a little girl. She’s been telling lies. You should go visit. Quiet now, remember to stay in the dark.”

The almost-mouse shuffled forward and rubbed her face along mine. Her flesh was cold and spongy, the hair damp, her whiskers limp and dragging. Her teeth were sharp, and she was hungry.

“Yes... Mother,” she said, and I rubbed her face with mine before she turned and shuffled down the tunnel, the next stepped up, tipping his face with the huge blind eyes to mine.

“Go, children. Find the liars... and eat them.”

It’s quite fortunate Mother had so many children. There’s an awful lot of people lying out there.


End file.
